One of the best athletes during his time, Billy Henderson was equally successful coaching baseball, football and swimming. The legendary coach passed away Wednesday at the age of 89.

Henderson was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2012.

More known around the state for the powerful football teams he built at Clarke Central in the 1980s. Henderson guided Willingham High School (which is now known as Southwest Macon) and Mount de Sales to baseball success.

In his coaching career, he won three state football titles, three baseball championships and a swimming state title.
Henderson finished with a football coaching mark of 285-107-16.

The Macon, Ga. native lettered in football, basketball, baseball and track & field at Lanier High School before he attended the University of Georgia on a football scholarship after turning down an opportunity to play professionally with the Chicago Cubs.

He played football and baseball at Georgia where he still holds a couple of school baseball records. He was an assistant football coach at Furman and South Carolina before his made his biggest mark coaching high school sports.

“Believe it or not, in my 45 years of coaching, I tried to recreate the environment that I had at Lanier High School,” Henderson told the Athens Banner Herald several years ago. “I played there all four sports — football, baseball, basketball and track — four straight years. And as soon as I could, I went back and helped start a new school, Willingham. I couldn’t wait to get into coaching.”

After retiring from Clark Central in 1995, he founded the Athens Athletic Hall of Fame and the Champions Foundation in 2000, organizations founded to provide summer day camps and sports camps to help high school athletes find scholarships and to promote sportsmanship.

The football field at Clarke Central is named in Henderson's honor. In 2012, the Bibb County Board of Commissioners named Macon's Sardis Coach Road Interchange after him.